The Dark Truth
by Jigglypuff70
Summary: Riddick's capture, survival, and escape from T2. - Reviews Welcome!
1. The Game

**The Dark Truth**

Chapter 1: The Game

Johns. That blue-eyed devil caught up with me again. I figured he would have given up for good after the last time we met—seeing as he spent the better part of six months recovering from that little family reunion. He stared relying on pain killers too much—now he's got a nice little addiction to boot. There's just no telling how far a man's greed will take him. What's the bounty on me now, I wonder? It's got to be pretty high for him to keep risking his life like this.

I don't know why I didn't just put the man out of his misery. Actually, that's not true; I do know why. I haven't ghosted his sorry ass because I like the game. I enjoy the chase. More than that, I love the hunt. What's funny, is he actually thinks he's the one doing the hunting. You ever see two kids running in a circle, but you can't tell who's chasing who? Well, that's our game.

He follows me. I watch him following me. I follow him. After a while it gets hard to tell the predator from the prey—but I never forget. After he catches up with me, he spends a couple weeks doing the cloak-n-dagger thing trying to get a bead on my routine (like I would be stupid enough to have a routine). Then he moves in for the kill—or capture in my case, since I'm worth more alive than dead. What he doesn't know, is that I know exactly where he's going to be and what he's going to do, even before he does. At least, that's been the case.

I don't know what happened this time. I underestimated him and he got the drop on me. It didn't help matters that he caught me at high noon and ripped my goggles off. I didn't expect him to attack in broad daylight. I guess he'd learned from his past mistakes and decided not to make his move at night—when I have the upper hand.

This was the third time we'd had a face to face. The first two times ended badly for Johns. This time didn't turn out so well for me. I guess two out of three ain't bad, but I should have ghosted him. Now I'm caught in my own little game of cat and mouse. Only this time, I'm the mouse stuck on this transport headed back to slam.

Back to the dark...


	2. The Dark

I thought slam was dark…

It ain't nothing compared to the darkness of a three-sunned planet in the middle of a solar eclipse. Its pitch black here, but that ain't the half of it.

What _are _those things anyway? When I first saw them spiraling up and out of those columns, the first thought that came to mind was…beautiful. They were powerful, primal, and predatory—all the attributes I, myself, possess. Apparently, they were also ravenous. They descended upon us with one mission, one objective, one thought…to feed.

There were eleven of us that survived the crash on this desolate rock, not counting the lone survivor who got his head shot off due to a case of mistaken identity, but our numbers were dwindling quickly. Zeke was the first to go, followed by Shazza, then Paris and two of Imam's boys. Our little psycho-fuck family was getting picked off one by one. Halfway to the compound we were down to six: a docking pilot, a holy man, two kids, a merc, and a killer.

I usually kill for fun, but on this planet, I had to kill to survive. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for killing Johns, but I do take pleasure in knowing that I helped. I cut him deep enough that those creatures could smell his blood from miles away, even though they were lurking just outside of our halo of lights.

Shortly after Johns ate it—or should I say, got eaten—the last of Imam's boys was taken…and then there were four. It was going to take a miracle to get us all out alive, but I don't believe in miracles. I believe in survival—survival of the fittest.

There was no way all of us were going to make it out alive, so I had Imam, Carolyn, and Jack hide out in a cave, while I got the cells to the skiff. I had no intention of going back for them. I was going to get off that God-forsaken planet with our without them—without them was just fine by me. Then she was there, standing in front of the ship, breathing hard, soaked to the bone, and holding a liquor bottle of blue light—God she was beautiful.

If it wasn't for Carolyn, they would have died on that planet, and I would have had more blood on my hands, but she showed me what it was to be human. She showed me what it was to care about someone other than myself. Like me, she had the survival instinct, and I admired that. Unlike me, she was willing to pay the ultimate price and sacrifice her life for theirs. She said she would die for them, but she didn't die for them—she died for me.

She said there had to be a part of me that wanted to rejoin the human race. I told her that I wouldn't know how.

That wasn't the thuth...


	3. The Truth

"There's gonna be a lot of questions, whoever we run into. Could even be a merc ship. So what the hell do we tell 'em about you?" Jack asked.

"Tell 'em Riddick's dead,"I said. "He died somewhere on that planet."

When Carolyn gave her life for mine, it was like something was ripped out of me as violently as she was ripped from my arms. But what was that something? Was it the part of me that made me a natural predator or was it the part that made me a man, made me human, made me care?

It wall all too much take in, and I was too tired and too beat up to think about it. All I wanted to do was go to sleep.

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"Hey, Riddick? Riddick! Riddick!!! Wake up, man". The voice was vaguely familiar, but it seemed out of place.

As I started to rouse, I realized I wasn't sitting in the cock-pit of the skiff and it wasn't Jack's voice I heard. I was lying on the stone cold floor of a damp, dark, dingy cell, and it was my cellmate waking me up from a bad dream.

The End.


End file.
